The most important stretch that has made me feel better

[MC]

I have had chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome for about 2 years now. You can search for my first post to read about it. My first plan of battle was to stretch out my body as thoroughly as possible while limiting my ejaculation. It certainly helped in as little as a couple months but as I felt better I got lazy. It always seems to go that way, lol.

Well I have tried many stretches over the years including all the AHIP stretches that are always mentioned and a lot more. The most important stretch for my success (I'm not healed but feeling a lot better, no any ejaculation pain at all!) is the squat against the wall stretch which is when one puts their back on the wall and slides down into a deep squat. To do this just back up to a wall and spread your feet about shoulder width apart and about 3-6" off the wall (the distance depends on what is comfortable for you). Then just slide your back down the wall, slowly so you don't hurt your knees, into a deep squat. In this position your knees will be bent out to the sides and your butt will be nearly on the floor in that 3-6" gap you made between the wall and your feet (distance from your heels to be exact). I started like this but within a couple weeks I needed a new challenge. I thehe started to spread my legs open with my arms which really stretched out to perineum even more. Its easy, just put your elbows against the inside of your knees when you are in the low squat position and then push your knees apart. Once your knees are apart just put your hands together into a fist with one hand and an open palm with the other or just put your hands into the "praying hand position".

Eventually I got used to this position too which led to the next level, which was the most important of all! I would set myself up into the wall squat stretch with my legs spread and held by the "praying" hand postion and begin Chi Gung. Chi Gung or Qi Gong (that is how you ussually see it spelled but you pronounce it Chi Gung) is an ancient Chinese art of spreading Chi (energy) throughout your body. It is part of Taoist philosophy but don't worry about that. To perform the Chi Gung just put your tongue on the roof of your mouth, not too far back or forward, to form a bridge between the roof of your mouth and the bottom of your mouth. Then breath in through your nose while pushing your abdomen out (proper abdominal breathing, email me if this sounds confusing). Next imagine the breath or Chi going down to the area known as the Dan Tien (the area about 1.5" below your navel). Next breath out and push the breath into your perineum followed by your anal muscles and finally up your back, over the top of your head and back to your tongue (that is why you bridge your tongue, to get the Chi back to the begining again). So summarized this means that you complete one inhale and exhale with one full Chi circulation. Just remember to breath in through your nose and push your abdominals out when you pull Chi down to the Dan Tien and breath out through your nose and pull your abdominals in when you push the chi into your perineum, anus, and up your back. Again, email me if you have any questions because this is pretty hard to explain.

Over the last couple months I have added the act of stretching my perineum and anus while cirulating the Chi through those areas. I think this has really made a large difference in my ejaculatory pain (post and during sex). I circulate my Chi just like above while in the deep squat stretch with my legs spread by my elbows with hands in the "praying" position. Then just push out my stomach first while I inhale, then push out my perineum next, and push out my anal muscles last. I do all three actions while inhaling slowly but powerfully. This pushing action expands the muscles outwards which you can feel when done correctly. Sort of like the feeling when you use your muscles to push out bowel movements. This in turns increases bloodflow which seems to be healing the damaged muscles. I also want to mention that you should aim to circulate your Chi for at least a few minutes (maybe 6-10 breaths a minute). I do 3-5 minutes in the morning before work and at night before bed and it makes a huge difference especially combined with other stretches and meditation.

My reflections on this- It makes a lot of sense! I'm just pushing out the damaged muscles with the air or Chi that I breathe in therefore I am getting similiar effects as one would get with a PT manually stretching out the muscles. Of course this Chi Gung with stretching technique is much more difficult but is something worth trying if you don't have a good PT nearby like many of us.

I have read tons of books on Chinese Philosopshy, medicine, Chi Gung, and martial arts. I regularly participate (or use) in martial arts, meditation, acupuncture, and chinese herbs. If you have any questions feel free to write because I love helping people with the Eastern ways I have found over the last couple years. If anyone else has other tips similar then please email me too.

Thanks for reading this.

Not medical advice just some ideas to try that have worked for me.

[Richie]

This and the prasarita (for the butt) are the only stretches I do. They are very focused but very effective for me.

Good stuff on the breathing. Thank you.

[Ginty]

Very interesting post MC.

I just recently bought a dvd on Qi Gong which I have been trying to follow but it didn't go into the specifics of the breathing tecnique, so thanks for the good description.

It is also good to have it more focussed on the pevlic area, I will definitely be giving this a try.

You mention martial arts and I have been thinking for some time now about joining a class.
My goals for this are firstly to get another hobby to keep my mind off illness. Secondly I want an outlet to help me de-stress after work. And lastly I want to get fitter and become more flexible.

Do you have a recomendation for what class I should go to?

I had been thinking of either Qi Gong or Tai Chi (sp?) but I was wondering if I could get the same benefits from something a bit more exciting such as Karate or something.
However I don't know much about it so this might be an unfair perception on my part - I'd appreciate your thoughts on this.

[MC]

First, it is extremely important to focus on your breathing while doing Chi Gung. Circulation of the Chi is the main purpose. It heals you and gives you power for martial arts. I'd recomend looking for a better book that goes into many styles of Chi Gung (Qi Gong). I recomend this book
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... I'm/cp58-20
and a DVD by the same guy (Jwing-Ming Yang). He also puts on seminars in the winter at his school in Jamaica Plain Boston.

Well there are a tons of martial arts to choose from. I could write forever about this so I'll just give a quick summary of some popular styles and you can email or post with more questions. Karate is the most known style and comes from Japan. It consists of kicks and punches and is an aggressive external style. I'm not convinced this will help chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome because it is very aggressive and it is tough to find an excellent teacher. It is a very mainstream martial art so anyone with a black belt can try to open a school and a ton do. But it does not mean that person is a qualified instructor. It depends on who their teacher was. Every generation it gets more and more watered down as does the conditioning.

Another style similar to Karate is Taekwondo which is a Korean style. I have taken this style with chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome and it did get my mind off chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome but also left my perineum and sometimes testicles in rough shape after a class. Taekwondo in general is move aerobic and rigorous than Karate due to its emphasis on leg techniques. Lots of crazy spinning kicks that you see in the movies. Though that makes the style very appealing, the style lacks a lot of other nesesary techniques which can be found in Karate. I'd say Karate is more well rounded but Taekwondo is more extreme, especially when it comes to kicks. Taekwondo is also better suited to sport competition fights if you are interested in that. So those are probably the most popular styles in your area. There are tons more like Hapkido, Jujitsu (probably the 3rd most popular style), Aikido, Judo, Wresting, etc. but just write back if you want info on other styles like those.

The style I want to talk about the most is Kung Fu (though it is not as common as the styles mentioned above). Kung Fu literally means "hard work" in Chinese. It is a Chinese style of martial arts with over 300 styles within. Kung Fu is actually what created Karate and Taekwondo but that is a debatable topic. But Kung Fu has been around for hundreds of years before most other styles were even thought of. So it is rich with tradition which is still taught today with a good Sifu (instructor in Chinese). Therefore lots of schools teach Chinese history, philosophy, and spirituality in the context of Kung Fu (but some schools do not, you have to visit a school to find out). Styles range from the soft Tai Chi Chuan, like you mentioned, to the hard Shaolin Styles. In the middle (wide mixtue of hard and soft techniques) there are styles like Praying Mantis which I take, Hung Gar, Choy Li Fut, Tam Tui, etc. In general Kung Fu styles tend to me less aggresssive and a lot more spiritual than Karate or Taekwondo but the aggresiveness does vary from Kung Fu style to Kung Fu style. Kung Fu mixes a large amount of techinuques for practically any situation from extremely flashy to very simple and effective. The downfall is that it takes about double the time to master a Kung Fu style(s) in comparison to the very short amount of time to master Karate or Taekwondo. Simply put, you learn a lot less with Karate or Taekwondo but you specialize in that small amount that you learn which means you become a better fighter quicker but 5 or more years into Karate or Taekwondo can leave you feeling bored. I know of many guys that feel that way. Some of which came to my school for that reason. Also, if you are interested in learning classical weapons Kung Fu is definitely the way to go. Karate does have weapons but they are very limited and Taekwondo rarely ever teaches weapons. Under the Mantis style of Kung Fu there are over 30 weapons to learn which is a lot. It would take more than a lifetime to learn all 30 well. So you pretty much never get bored by running out of new material to learn. Another aspect that might interest you is the fact that lots of the crazy acrobatic styles you see in mainstream martial art movies like Crouching Tiger, most any Jet Li movie like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, etc. are Kung Fu styles. They tend to be very beautiful and almost dance like in their execution (until you get hit, lol). This is what first appealed to me along with the emphasis on spirituality which I never got in Taekwondo. I could go on and on since I've read tons of books on the martial arts but just write me with any questions.

The other style of martial arts that I take is Tai Chi Chuan which you mentioned above. It is a soft style (means more internal power than external power is used) of Kung Fu. There are many styles of Tai Chi but most everyone learns the Yang style first. If you only want to get the health benefits and spirituality then most any decent Tai Chi instructor can help you. But if you also want to learn the martial art application of Tai Chi (you don't fight slow, lol) then you need to find a good Sifu. Most Tai Chi schools teach elderly people for the health benifits and never teach the application which is fine too. Tai Chi Chuan is probably the best no impact excercise ever created. It circulates the blood and Chi through the body in a short amount of time. You also work up a small sweat so your cardiovacular is improving. In my opinion you can't go wrong with trying Tai Chi for your CPPS. It can only help you in ways you can't imagine yet. It has been scientificly proven to lower anxiety, blood pressure, chronic pain, and a lot more. Of course like stretching it does take time to achieve these results but there seems to be no quick fixes to chronic prostatitis / chronic pelvic pain syndrome so why not try it??? Also, most Tai Chi classes are begun with Chi Gung exercises so you end up learning both Tai Chi and Chi Gung.

If you end up wanting more of a physical workout then supplement the Tai Chi Chuan style with an external Kung Fu style like Praying Mantis. That way you heal/build your body inside and out to its fullest potentional while learning self defense, tradition, spirituality, and classical forms and weapons. My typical Kung Fu workout consists of weight training for a half hour, Tai Chi for an hour, and Mantis for an hour and a half. Then I stretch out and meditate at home. Probably 3-4 hours of exercise twice a week. But I always practice my Kung Fu and Tai Chi as well as stretch out and meditate every morning before work and at night before bed (you just need 30-60 minutes to fit all that in).

That is a pretty full martial art schedule but it really works for me. Switching over to the Chinese Kung Fu styles have really helped my CPPS. I feel really good about myself because I am learning an art that was the origin of all other marial arts, it helps build my spirituality, it teaches me important health exercise like Chi Gung and Tai Chi, and it gives me a great workout which keeps me in good shape. Again, I could go on and on, lol.

Let me know if that helps. I have a lot more info to offer if you are interested